The Furnace

For a long while, at least since the last summer ended, our furnace had been making thumping noises anytime it was on.  We didn't think too much of it at first, but it gradually got louder, more frequent, etc, you know how that goes.  So I got online to see what it might be and Daddy went down to take a look to see how ours compared with my findings.  Both our efforts yielding nil, so it was time to call in the professionals.  We'd had a company come out for a couple of things related to the AC in the previous year and had liked their service well enough, so finally, the day before Valentine's day (yes, the same day that Daddy and I had our evening date), we called them to come take a look at the furnace.

The worker showed up in the early afternoon, and I took him down to the basement so he could take a look.  It didn't take long... After about a minute of inspection, we got the news: "Your furnace is about 25 years old, the motor is going out, and because of its age, new motors won't fit and new old motors are hard to find."

Oh goody, just want we wanted, a new furnace.

The next few hours were a bit of a blurr:  On top of planning and prepping for our evening out, we were now fielding calls and setting up a second visit with a guy who worked in the 'new' department (as opposed to the 'repairs' department).  The original plan was to try to track down an old motor, but that idea got shot down quickly because really, if we could afford a new furnace, that was the better way to go.  Who knew when something else would break on it, especially with all the vibration it'd been dealing with from that bad motor.  So we had the phone calls and then this new guy came out to take a look to see what sort of furnace and arrangements we'd need, and then we talked it all out with him and decided on what we wanted and could afford, all that fun grown-uppy stuff...  And then he left with the promise to return the very next day to do the tear out and install.  Yipes, that happened fast...

Well, we didn't have anything better to do on Valentine's Day, so why not have the furnace installed?  We spent the better part of the morning into the afternoon getting gradually colder and colder as the house got its upgrade, but that was all made up for the moment the switch was flipped and the new machine turned on.  It was so QUIET.  I had had no idea, up until that moment, just what a racket we'd been living with...The old furnace quite literally vibrated the floors at times, and there was something in the medical cabinet in the bathroom (the part of the house that is right over the furnace) that rattled incessantly.  Of course the thumping was gone too.  All we had was a gentle hum and warm air rushing in to displace the cold, and it was marvelous.

 The Old                                                    The New

As you can see, they had to put in a fair bit of extra ductwork and pipes because new furnaces are much shorter than old ones...that more than anything else is what took so much time.

Roughly 24 hours after we'd learned it was dying, our old furnace was sitting out in the alley, awaiting its fate apart from us.

The wonderful thing about this city is that you don't have to worry about disposal at all.  Put something big and metal out in the alley and it's almost guaranteed to be gone within the hour--as was indeed the case with this.  We supported our local scrappers today! :)

There was only one last piece of the puzzle that remained to be solved, and this was taken care of a couple of weeks later...The front part of our house has essentially 5 large rooms that are heated through a total of 3 vents.  The back part of our house also has 5 rooms, but they make up a much smaller space, and have a total of 6 vents.  Clearly, our house did not heat evenly, and since we were working on the furnace, it made sense to resolve this problem now.  We went through a couple of different ideas and potential fixes, including adding vents to the front play area or creating a 2-zone system with thermostats...but in the end, all we needed was a relatively simple fix:  A damper was installed inside the vent line leading to the back of the house.  It blocks a part of the airflow to that direction, allowing more of the heat to go where it's most needed--the cold side where we spend the most time.  It took a little adjusting to figure out what angle to position it at, and it will likely need to be changed in the summer, but it's fully adjustable and works almost like magic.

Yay for a properly heated house!